- China appears to be erecting structures in the Yellow Sea between China and the Korean peninsula.
- China’s playbook for dominating neighbors includes island reclamation and maritime structures.
- The Yellow Sea is of historic importance to China, a former South Korea diplomat argues.
With China’s neighbors already nervous about its territorial ambitions, a new flashpoint has emerged between China and South Korea.
China appears to be erecting structures in the Yellow Sea, located between China and the Korean peninsula. South Korea fears this could be a prelude to Beijing asserting sovereignty over the 150,000-square-mile body of water, which is rich in fish and has oil and gas deposits. This power play would have implications for the US.
South Korean spy satellites detected the Chinese structure in December, according to the Chosun Daily, a South Korean newspaper. “The installation, a mobile steel framework exceeding 50 meters in diameter and height, was spotted in the disputed waters,” the newspaper said. China erected two similar structures in 2024, eliciting South Korean protests.
“China has reportedly described the structures as ‘fishing support facilities,’ dismissing concerns,” the Chosun Daily noted. “South Korean officials believe China plans to install up to 12 such structures.”
To describe the situation as complicated would be an understatement. The Yellow Sea is in the exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, of both China and South Korea. Under international law, an EEZ allows nations to claim jurisdiction over economic resources out to 200 miles from their coastlines (at 4.3 million square miles, the US has the second-largest EEZ in the world after France). China has built islands to bolster its dubious claims to most of the South China Sea and challenged the EEZ rights of neighbors like the Philippines.
Asked for comment on the sighted construction in the Yellow Sea, Liu Pengyu, a spokeman for the Chinese Embassy in the US, said “I am not aware of the specific situation, but as far as I know, China and the [Republic of Korea] are pushing forward negotiations on maritime delimitation and have established a dialogue and cooperation mechanism on maritime affairs. The two sides maintain sound communication on maritime issues.”
Not surprisingly, in a world where oceanic resources — such as oil and fish — are coveted like buried treasure, disputes over EEZs are not uncommon. In the Mediterranean, for example, Greece and Turkey are at odds over energy deposits.
In this case, South Korea argues that the boundary between the conflicting EEZs should be drawn down the middle of the Yellow Sea. However, “China maintains that the maritime boundary should be proportional to its longer coastline and larger population,” according to the National Bureau of Asian Research, a US think tank.
In 2001, China and South Korea created the Provisional Measures Zone, or PMZ, which covers the area of their overlapping EEZs. In addition to delineating joint fishing rights and fisheries management, the PMZ also mandated that both nations would gradually restrict fishing to their respective EEZs. Instead, South Korea has long complained about Chinese vessels fishing in the Korean side, which has led to South Korean ships firing on Chinese fishermen.
Were this simply a fishing dispute, the Yellow Sea might resemble the infamous “Cod Wars” between Britain and Iceland, which was an economic conflict rather than a shooting war. But Korea, and China’s other neighbors, fear that Beijing is trawling for more than fish.
Tensions between South Korea and China risk drawing in the US, which has a mutual defense pact with South Korea and bases 28,000 troops there.
Erecting permanent maritime structures has become the calling card announcing Chinese claims to the Western Pacific. Most notorious are the artificial islands China has created in the South China Sea, which serve as air and naval bases to assert Beijing’s claims to sovereignty over mineral-rich waters also claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.
These Chinese outposts spread like inkspots. For example, Beijing recently declared the waters around Scarborough Shoal — disputed reefs claimed by China and the Philippines — as territorial waters. In effect, these installations serve as the maritime equivalent of boots on the ground to assert a physical presence in an area.
The Yellow Sea hasn’t received as much global attention as flashpoints in the South China Sea, or China’s simmering dispute over Japanese-controlled islands in the East China Sea. But the Yellow Sea is quite crucial to China, which is sensitive about its coastal areas, Sang Hun Seok, a former South Korean diplomat, argued in an essay for the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.
“From China’s strategic point of view, solidifying its littoral defense and expanding the areas where it can enjoy freedom of action are critically important for its security,” Sang Hun wrote.
There is also a psychological sensitivity rooted in Chinese history over the last 200 years, in which China lost several wars and had its territory seized by colonial powers such as Great Britain, Japan and Russia. “Most critical battles in Northeast Asia since the 19th century — a period China sees as a brief deviation from its rightful historical trajectory — have been fought in the vicinity of the Yellow Sea,” Sang Hun wrote.
Unless South Korea and its allies can stop China from erecting outposts in the Yellow Sea, “the strategic balance in the region will ultimately shift in China’s favor, leaving the allies’ freedom of action restricted to a fraction of the Yellow Sea,” Sang Hun warned. “This gradual shift would first weaken the defense posture for critical military assets along the west coast of the Korean Peninsula, gradually followed by Kyushu, Okinawa and ultimately Taiwan.”
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
